


Quietus

by Demidea



Category: Warcraft (2016)
Genre: Ghosts, Khadgar dies before Lothar, M/M, Mentions of Smut, POV Second Person, reunited post-death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-19 00:18:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8181437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demidea/pseuds/Demidea
Summary: "You did your duty. You united the querulous kings and leaders, lead the war, fought with their forces. You lived and died by the strategies and battlefield logic, survived the magic and steel, the madness and the bloodlust until the adrenaline crystalized in your bones and battle was the burden you wished would end, either you it or you by it.And as it so happens, you manage both. Your men will live to fight another day, and you will not.Your hand, the dark gauntlet dirty from battle, falls from sight. Your heart, deprived of blood to pump, sears one last starburst of pain over your spent mind, and you allow yourself one last hope:Maybe your mage will have waited for you, after all these years."





	1. Lothar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Khadorkable (Samifery)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samifery/gifts).



> Based on the LionTrust discord chat.

Think of it like a contract, and not like the weight of blood pooling into your chest cavity wasn’t slowly crushing the breath from your lungs. Panic sets in as you choke, unable to fill your lungs with enough air.

The end of a contract, you grapple for the concept, as the age old fight instincts scramble until all your nerves scream  _ Fight! Struggle! Survive! _ The rational part of your mind, quickly fading with the rest, knew you could reach for the sky, but no hand that reached back would save you. The contract you were born to, the one sealed in the blood of your noble father and mother, bearing the ancient weight of the Arathi, should end drenched in one final signature of that same blood.

You did your duty. You united the querulous kings and leaders, lead the war, fought with their forces. You lived and died by the strategies and battlefield logic, survived the magic and steel, the madness and the bloodlust until the adrenaline crystalized in your bones and battle was the burden you wished would end, either you it or you by it.

And as it so happens, you manage both. Your men will live to fight another day, and you will not.

Your hand, the dark gauntlet dirty from battle, falls from sight. Your heart, deprived of blood to pump, sears one last starburst of pain over your spent mind, and you allow yourself one last hope.

Maybe your mage will have waited for you, after all these years.

You attempt to suck air in one last time but the weight of the blood defeats your oxygen-starved diaphragm, and the wet, halted choke is all the confirmation you asked for. With your body’s permission, you slip gracefully, gratefully, into the darkness awaiting you.

There is nothing here. The sky is a mess of ink and white mist, of which the mist pours down on all sides and pools over the plane so that your calves disappear in gradient and your feet are all but gone. You’re wearing simple clothes, and what ghost of you is left aches for… Something. Weight, wrapped around you and cinched so tight only years of experience allowed free motion. Your left hip feels especially bare.

You are here. That concept alone is a gargantuan enough task to comprehend it takes what feels like years until the frail hold of your mind wraps around it and absorbs it completely.

You take a step, and the mist rolls and buoys, curling behind you to fill the space you once occupied. You’re here, for a reason. Another step. This is the lingering place, where all who died mired in the unfinished story remain until they can unearth their soul from the living world and go wherever the Light was, or wherever it led.

You’re here for a person. As you walk, you see others, hulking shapes in the mist, sunk low in the mist, jerking like dogs on chains. One, you see, a man tall and thin, vaguely familiar, who sits curled in grief. Something in the slope of his back gives you pause, but when you take a step toward him (half in hope and half dread), his head shoots up and you’re looking into the deep green pits of a magic you learned to fear in another life.

That is not him.

So you continue to walk, and the mists seem to pull back, the distant gray shape gaining definition, until you see Them. The legions of men and women, of dwarves and elves and orcs, their races and allegiances seeping back into your immediate conscious, and as they do, the young men, too young to bear the armor they died in, wounds your heart all the more.

You lead these men once. Well, some of them, but in this place you can hardly tell who. Originally you think the divide may lie in the races, but each had a mix of reactions to your presence that you could be sure. Some saluted, some turned away, and others meet you with baleful glares, all regardless of race.

Deep into the thick of the dead, movement catches your eye: the first to share your freedom of movement that you can see. He wears gleaming armor, untarnished by age, and a crown that tames his grey-streaked curls. As you approach, you hear his voice.

“You did well.” The man he talks to is grizzled, his armor plain. A common soldier. His eyes, though, they lay hidden under white light. “Those you died for now have a chance to live.” The light spills over, tendrils of mist like tears. “You’re ready. Just look up.”

The soldier does, and trailing ends of the tendrils curl up, pulling the soldier from the mist and into the mist above. The man, the King, turns and catches his eye.

“Lothar.” Your name, his lips.

You’re stricken, unable to respond, but the revelation pulls his name from some hidden depth. “Llane.”

Unbidden, you move forward to meet him, your left arm drawing up to clap into his, but when the motion completes, your hands miss. You go to try again, to reach out, any form of contact, but the sorrow in Llane’s eyes stop you. “Considering the circumstances, I’m not sure It’s good to see you again is appropriate, but I have missed you, my friend.”

“I’ve missed you more than you can know.” You reply, sure of it without the memory to back it.

“I would ask you to stay, but-“ Llane’s eyes slip past your own to a spot in the distance, “-he’s been here for far too long. He does not listen to me. I was hoping, perhaps, he was waiting for you.”

You turn immediately, eager, because Llane’s words strike the urgency in you, but there’s nothing there aside from mist. A warm palm spreads over your left shoulder, the vambrace digging in across the wings of both shoulders.

“He’s there. Find him.”

“Yes, sir.” You flash him a smile, the old jest to lighten the load of ordering a friend, but sober quickly. You turn to him, and carefully, so your hands don’t sink through, place both hands on either pauldron, his lion pressing into your right hand. “I’ll come back for you.”

Gingerly, Llane places his left hand over your own. “You already have.”

You spend a minute searching his eyes, but it’s goodbye, and you both know. He will do right by his kingdom even here, even now, but your duty to him ended in death, and now it’s ended again before you could swear to him.

“Go, Lothar.”

Your hands fall from nothing, the emptiness of the land stretches before you, and for a moment you cling to the image of Llane turning profile. But he had his mission, and you yours, so you step into the mist.  _ He _ Llane had said, and you wrack your memory for a name to pin to the concept.

_ -clever fingers, thrumming with power slowly stroking your length, you can’t see his eyes under the the stream of blue energy but you can  _ feel _ how smug he is. His other hand lights up as well, and presses into your lower back, and it’s as if a current has been applied to to your spine, your shoulders flex, your back arches, driving you into his hand, and the cry that elicits actually makes the bastard  _ laugh-

_ -your upper lip tingles where his mustache bristled against it. Normally, as you’ve teased him in the past, the hair there is so sparse it wouldn’t pose this problem (at least not like yours has to  _ him _ ), but the pup recently developed a taste for sucking in your lower lip- _

_ -cold stone bites into your palm, contrasting the burning, sweat-sheened forehead pressed into the back of your hand, and of all the sweet noises he’s made thus far, when he finally breathes “Anduin,” there’s no account for the swelling in your chest. Lust, you could’ve handled, but it’s not that, not now after almost fucking each other raw- _

He’s all the pieces that fall in place, built from what is left after time and death itself erased what they could. His voice when he’s convinced he’s right, the way his eyes flutter shyly away from and back before landing in full blown eye contact, the strangely adorable dumbfounded look when he realizes you’re going to drag him into some adventure with only the barest hint of seeking permission…

Did you only know one another for the better part of a single year? You feel as though you have memories that span more than your own lifetime.

The mists fall thick here, with streams rolling down in columns as thick as small houses, and the effect is compounded by the rise in ceiling, giving you the sense of an ant walking in an ancient forest. How are you to find him here? As you trudge around the base of one such column, you attempt as much as possible to recall a sense of your former self. You must have experience, but what good is it if you can’t call upon it? How would you have found him, there?

By calling his name.

Just as you are Lothar, he must be someone. You’re Lothar. Anduin, to Him. Lothar to Llane. Anduin, Lothar. Anduin Lothar.

How are you to recall his name if you only have the faintest sense of your own?

The column you circumvent leads only to a field of vision filled with more like it: 

Did you ever say his name? You remember a kiss in a tavern: the way his confusion tempers the heat of your temerity, and though you intended it to be quick and fierce it ended sweet, but the name you call him after, as his wide brown eyes ask questions you’re not sure you can answer, doesn’t taste like a formal name.  _ Bookworm. _

You remember  _ Tease  _ for that one particular night he wouldn’t leave his lips alone. Between his lips and his restless fingers, you were surprised to find you got a single thing done that day with all the sinful plans you were making regarding those lips.

Another memory, not quite like the others, of his body pinned between yours and a desk, the flash of irritation and the snap decision to retaliate mixed with all the nerves of an inexperienced fighter. That day, you called him  _ Spell-chucker _ , but it fits only as a place name for a stranger.

You’re close, though, because if ever there were memory of you using his name, it would be while you were mostly strangers.

The mist rises in slope, you must be nearing a column because you’re up to your knees. It turns out you’re closer than even you knew, a surge of mist flanks your left side. All at once, the darkness in front of your face roils white. When the swell passes, and the darkness clears, the white lingers, whirling in your vision like stars used to after a heavy blow. Blinking, swiping your eyes, it doesn’t help, really.

You don’t have time for this, you need to-

You need to something. You neeeeeed toooo-

Find him. Carefully, you back away from the mist, and as you do, two whispy trails from your own eyes float up. Perhaps this lingering place carries more danger than you realized.

Him. The boy. The kid. The mage. The man you trusted with your life (which was cheap) and then with you heart (which turned out to be more than you could afford). You can call him to mind so easily, weather-tanned skin, sharp brown eyes, the full lips you adored and the dark curls you sometimes wished were longer.

His name was ---------, Guardian Noviate. He had looked at you like you were some spell he’d dearly love to learn, and then like you were the only drink that would satisfy his thirst. You could weedle a smile as easy as scowl depending on how stupid he determined your actions. Once you met him, he always seemed to find you, dogging your steps even when they led you both to danger. He was there the day you lost the first garrison of men, and the day you had to kill your best friend.

And when you watched him fall, you cried out his name.

“Khadgar!” The sound of your own voice startles you, distorted as it was. “Khadgar!”

The columns bend out, which is probably a bad sign, but all you see is proof you’re on the right track. You set off in the direction they bend from. “Khadgar! Come on, Mage, it's hard enough without you playing games!”

Ahead, one column remained unbent, those around it. In its core, about four heads higher than where you are now, you can make out a gray shape.

“Who speaks?” His voice is fragmented, and seems to come from all sides, but it is his.

“Did you forget me? That’s a little harsh.” But if he’s trapped in the mist, not unexpected.

Speaking of, the mist pulls back, revealing the figure you’ve been searching for since death. “Khadgar.”

He looks as he had. Too young. Lovely. Afraid. As the mists draw away, though, the euphoria of finally seeing him again falters. His eyes are white light, and the mist streams down his cheeks. “Lothar.”

He reaches for you, but in order for you to get to him, you’d need to brave the mist again. Like an idiot, you search your surroundings, but this is death, there is no leverage or vantage points. In death all you can bring is sacrifice. So you step forward, the white light diverting in rivulets down your arms and against your chest, and you aim to reach him, hoping that halfway through you wouldn’t forget what you were reaching for, praying that, unlike Llane, you would not simply pass through.

Then, he is in your arms.

It’s not what you had while living. You understand now you both are incorporeal, that you will never truly touch again, or experience any of the sensations like smell or taste, but even having lost all else, and despite the diverging paths fate had set for you both, he is in your arms, his head buried in your neck.

“It’s you.” He murmurs. “Really you.”

“Of course.”

“It wasn’t-” He clings tighter. “There are things here that lurk in the dark.”

“It’s me this time, and it’ll be me until whatever awaits us.”

You stay like that, locked in embrace, until his shoulders stop heaving. Then you loosen your grip, your hand reaching to cup his face. “Show me your eyes.”

He leans into your hand, eyes opening to reveal whiteness. “No,  _ your _ eyes.”

“I don’t know that I can.” He says, as if what you ask for is impossible. Maybe it is, but he blinks several times, concentration furrowing his brow. On the last, he holds his eyes closed for a second longer, and when they open, you feel the rest of this plane fall away. The eyes you remember, liquid brown and too intelligent for either of your well-being.

“Hello.” You say, lilting. His lips twitch to a smile, eyes flicker from yours for the briefest second but return so soon you know he must have missed you.

“Hi.” He replies in a tone you once mistook for shy, but the way his eyes flick down to your lips and linger, and how he (intentionally) teases his own between his teeth, confirms he’s nothing of the sort. Who are you not to oblige? You lean in, trying to catch his eyes one last time, before yours close and your mouths meet.

It’s a strange feeling, to miss saliva, but you’re lighter than you’ve felt in so long.

When your eyes open, your suspicions are confirmed: you can barely see Khadgar through the light, but from what you can see, his eyes, too, are white. The streams, this time, flow upward.

“What’s up there, do you think?” Khadgar asks.

“I don’t know.” You answer. “But I’ll go with you.”

Because if the first death was physical, the second is likely memory. You will miss what you had, and you will most certainly miss this. As the light brightens, you lean in again, seeking his mouth one last time.

It may be the end, but you will not face it alone, and that is more than enough.


	2. Khadgar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In response to an anonymous tumblr ask, "What did Khadgar fear in the dark?"

There are stories Lothar will never know. Stories no one will know, and it maddens you that not even the tangible record of destruction will be left to show for your struggles. At least in the Living World you could leave enough destruction to cause someone to pause and think  _ By the Light, what happened here?  _

There is no such promise here. The mists act as fluid sand, your presence is washed away in a minute’s passing. No pens, no ink, no paper, much less a place to sit and rest. No one to talk to, and even if you tried to reach the pitiable creatures that shared this fate with you, if you could not trust your own memory there was no hope for theirs.

And you can’t trust your memory. You know that now. As there are no physical features, there’s nothing to prevent you from wandering down into the recent past, stumbling like a dream into the nightmare of reality you can’t alter, can’t control, can only relive, bound helpless to a narrative that you’ve read the ending of already. They don’t behave linearly, either, but rather like an unbound book tossed in the air: individual chapters plucked at random.

Almost. In fact, you would prefer random. Anything to this hellish nightmare of repeating your one mistake.

The only thing you are certain of is the beginning, and you are fairly certain you have not reached the end.

~~

You died. It wasn’t clear to you that you had at first. Mostly, it came as a shock. Like tripping, except instead of falling you hang, suspended, in the  _ wrongness _ of it. And it’s not like you could’ve oriented yourself. It was death, it had seeped into you, quiet and frightening, something very powerful that ate you from the inside out, and left you powerless to respond. And then, you felt nothing.

Not a lack of pain, a lack of  _ everything. _ A quietness you could feel, a quietness you’re afraid you’ve  _ become. _ You wait. Surely this couldn’t have been it. You can’t have- There must be some mistake. You must have slipped unconscious, or fallen prey to some over-empowered silencing spell. You’ll hear it. Your heart. Your lungs. The rush of blood through the veins of your ear.

Anything.

But nothing sounded. As the moments pass, you regain no definition. Everything, sight, taste, touch, hearing, smell, proprioception, thermoception, equilibrioception- all are blank.

You’re dead. There’s no other explanation.

Once you’ve identified your situation, you see a clearing ahead: a blackness deeper than any you’ve ever known, giving instant contrast and definition to the Blankness of before. You’re moving towards it, and you’re struck with two thoughts: you are absolutely not ready for this, and if there is a way forward, there is a way back.

You’re not proud of what you do next. What you do, what you  _ are _ , because essentially you did not make many choices but rather  _ were _ rage and frustration and panic. Even as you return, it’s not fully. The air presses down on you unpleasantly, trying to squeeze you back into the empty darkness as if there is no room for you here. You’re faced with the new reality that the air, once intangible, now is more physical than you. Once you’ve worked around that, though you realize the room you are in is empty. Your body has been moved, and the irrational frustration that washes over you taps into the place you once drew the arcane from.

Its ridiculous to consider now, but you commit violence against the stone walls and wood furniture. You remember throwing decorations over and over until they splinter, tearing cloth to shreds, and when all else was destroyed, scattering the debris like shrapnel. It was not the most dignified behavior, more like the teenager you were once continuously accused of being. Considering the circumstances, though, you’re pretty sure you’re justified.

“Khadgar.” He sounds so broken you have to pause. The rage is still there, broiling, but your focus redirects to him. To Lothar. Who looks like he wants to reach out and gather you in his arms as he once did, but the way his eyes move- He does not see you. “Is it you?”

Pain rips through your chest. The shards of chair you held aloft you throw aside.  _ Collect yourself _ has never been more literal than it was in this moment, and even then, as you direct what little you have left into his chest, you don’t even have a semblance of self.

Lothar gasps, his chest curves over, abdomen drawing in, arms lifting as if to hold you. You try, as much as possible, to fill the space, to press against his chest and into the space under his chin.

But his arms slowly drop back to his sides, and you cannot even feel the hard leathers of his light armor, much less taste the skin of his neck.

“It is you.” If you were helpless before, now the feeling is compounded, and there is nothing like hearing pain in the voice of the love of your life and being unable to kiss it away. His chest heaves, the light pressure causing you to drift a little away, and you wonder if he could cry for the both of you.

His hand raises again, this time hovering where the top of your head would be, a gesture both sweet and heartbreaking when the hand falls through and comes to rest on his own shoulder.

“I would give anything to have you back,” he says, voice low and raw from witheld sobs, “but this is not right.”

_ No _ , you want to say,  _ nor is it fair. _

He would have chided you for being childish, you’re sure.

“If you can’t move past this,” Lothar says, picking his words carefully, “Wait for me, and I will go with you.”

It’s a promise, but not one you want to receive. You feel the draw again, the pressure of the air buoying back to the Blankness, and the dark that lies waiting beyond.

“It should not be long. How am I to last without you?”

With what you have left, you press against his cheek. This time, it must work, he turns into the pressure.

_ Don’t talk like that _ , you want to say, just as much as you want,  _ Don’t keep me waiting forever. _

His eyes are red rimmed, and the last thing you see before the Blank swallows you, and you remember at the time thinking,  _ Please don’t let this be the end. _

~~

What an idiot you were. What an idiot you are, if you’re still waiting here. Should you have known of the dangers wandering after death would pose? Of course not, how could you? But you should have known keeping a promise to Lothar would entail the kind of difficulties you end up facing. How did you ever come to love such an impossible creature that asked such impossible things of you?

_ Wait for me. _

And you will.

You are not the only thing waiting in the dark.

~~

There is nothing to do here. Death does not afford one books or pen and ink. It has only grudgingly afforded you a body and the memory of clothes. Even then, in your frustration and boredom, you’ve found it to be more of a shape than a body you could touch. You should have known, really. In the catalogue of things you’ve lost, the feeling of cloth dragging over skin as you move is listed next to the taste of air and the smell of water.

You’re not alone, but only in the strictest sense of the word. It would seem this is liminal space shared by most dead. You’re not sure those you come across are aware of that. Of all the others you’ve come across, none seemed to posses the ability to walk freely, or possess a presence of mind at all.

In any case, they were not good partners in conversation.

 

You lose stretches of time standing in place. When the monotony of white mist pouring down over black nothing wears you down, you catch yourself staring at the only dynamic presence available: the individual particles of mist.

You’d watch on drift down, following an unseen current until it hits the lower threshold, where it bobs and swirls until dissolving pooled mist.

The fleck of mist sometimes grows dimmer, the darkness fading in gradients of gray. Sometimes, the black is all white, and the boredom melts, loneliness melts. Everything melts.

_ Wait for me, and I will go with you. _

Almost everything.

~~

It finds you after one of these moments, as you shake yourself from the brink. The Voice in the Dark.

_ That was close. _ It’s not speech, there’s no tone or pitch and there’s no way you sensed it with what passes for ears here. But they are words, they didn’t originate from you, and they seemed to hold knowledge about your situation in them.

“Who’s there?” You ask, turning around. But there’s nothing to indicate the presence of another.

_ You can’t see me. But I am here. _ You have to admit, that doesn’t inspire trust. And yet, now that you’ve heard another voice, you’re desperate to have it keep talking.

“What do you mean by close?” You continue to look around, searching.

_ You almost forgot entirely. _ There is a notable difference in the voice, so it does have a source. “Entirely” felt farther away, perhaps you were moving in the wrong direction. You turn around, only to have the voice rush in like the tide.  _ What holds you here, young one? _

“A promise.” You freeze up. You can feel it now, prickling against your face not unlike cold breath. This voice has presence, just not in a sense you can understand. That was definitely concerning, but if the voice had  _ any _ knowledge you can use, you’ll take it.

You hear a sound like a whetstone on steel.  _ A promise? _ It is laughing.  _ You are better off continuing without them. _

“Okay.” You’re not sure you could if you tried, “You said continuing on. What do you mean by that?”

_ You have died. It will not do for you to linger here when you could move on. _

“You linger.”

_ I was created here. You were born to move on from one moment to the next. _

“So?”

_ You’ve chosen to stay between moments. _

“I made a promise.”

_ Many have, young one- _

“Khadgar.” No response. “My name is Khadgar.”

_ Many have made promises. The living can never keep their word to the dead. You remain stuck in the moment of your death. He has already moved passed you. _

You have a fierce desire to blow something up, or storm off. And if you could afford to lose the company, you would have. This voice may know this place, but it did not know Lothar and it certainly didn’t know you.

“What is this place?”

_ You don’t know already? _

“I can guess, but you say you were born here. I assume you have more certainty.”

_ It is Transition. It is the moment of Death. It is to be experienced. _

You know you are dead, but the reminder still strikes you to the core. You have singularly lost all you have, and the reminder resounds the pain of the original wound. “Transition to what?”

It pauses. The energy around you stills.  _ You cannot know that here, it is for the other side. _

“Well, is it going to change if I don’t,” what had the thing called it? “-transition?”

Silence, but the energy starts to thrum, and if there were an atmosphere here, and you had a body, you would feel it tighten against your skin. “I made a promise.” You say, with finality. “And it would seem there is no harm in keeping in.”

The thrum sizzles to a peak, then ebbs. You wait, patiently, for the only other voice you’ve heard to respond.

_ Your promise. You are so sure it will be filled. Tell me about the one who would fill it. _

~~

You are an idiot. Did Medivh not warn you against the decisions one made in loneliness? But then, you were young and inexperienced with the insidious. It’s little wonder you died so young.

~~

You observe so much, and yet none of it is significant change.

The first transition you watch happens so quickly you’re never clear what actually happened. You were traipsing, moving to sidestep stagnation more than anything else, when something rises from the mist at your feet. A plume, like some muted explosion, and in its depths the shadow of a face. The eyes are white light, and leak streams upward. The mouth opens, or rather, white light burns through the back of his throat, and contrasts his mouth, curled into a scream. The figure shoots directly up, and enters the mist above without making so much of a ripple.

_ That is how it supposed to be. _ The Voice tells you (had you met it before this? Or had the explanation come after, and you’re mind, always seeking answers, applied it later?)  _ Quick. Mindless. Without agony. _

“So many need help letting go, however.” The thing with Llane’s likeness tells you. When you focus in, you see details: curly brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard, the royal blue stone he favored, the lion embroidered in gold threads on his cuffs. But when you tried to really look at him, you struggle to see anything other than a body simply clothed. You hear his voice when he speaks, but every now and then a certain syllable drops, and is filled by the Voice.

_ In this form, _ “if I commanded”  _ you,  _ “would”  _ you obey? _

“You are not Llane Wrynn.” You answer.

~~

(Those did not happen at the same time, nor in that order…)

~~

_ Tell me about the one whose promise you keep. _

The question comes as you lift your arm, and flex. You commanded power once. Respectfully, of course, and with great skill, but you hadn’t checked to see if you retained that command here. The question derails your experiments. “Who? Lothar?”

You see red-rimmed blue eyes, and hear a voice so dear it cuts through your rage.

“Lothar.” You repeat, enjoying the shape of his name in your mouth. The same loss strikes up in your chest, because you miss  _ him _ . And yet, as you attempt to search deeper, you have trouble recalling who  _ he _ is. What sort of person would you hang on to so dearly through the end of life itself?

Your focus dims as you search your memory. You remember his eyes, how they had weight to them you hadn’t known before. Everything about him seemed to have a presence, actually, to the point where he changed the mood of the room when he walked in (for better or worse, depending on how sober he happened to be). But you remember feeling safe under those eyes, like you could let your guard down.

You remember the night ale loosened both your inhibitions, how the meaning of words fizzled to laughter, and his mouth very pink and very clearly framed with ale-wet dark hair. When you weren’t concentrating fiercely on your book, you caught yourself staring at them far more than could have escaped his notice. But you’re not expecting him to keep putting his hand on your book to get your attention, or refill your tankard when you got to the dredges. You’ve reached a solid heady buzz, stared at his mouth for far too long, and finally returned your attention to your book, trying to figure out where on this page you had last read. Before you could focus, though, you feel rough fingers on your chin, and he takes up all your vision, then all of your attention as his mouth presses against yours. At first the kiss is all pressure, but you part your lips and tilt in, which causes him to hesitate, then let up.

You miss him so much.

Have you been speaking this entire time? It’s hard to tell in a place where no sound supposedly exists. You feel something on your cheeks, and your eyes won’t return to focus. You realize you’ve risen partially, and when your hand comes away from your eyes, it comes away with a strand of white mist fluttering over your fingertips.

_ Let him go. _ The Voice says.  _ He wouldn’t want you to remain here, suffering. _

You lift your hand instinctively. The mist agitates like you’ve never seen it do before, and you feel a memory of power. “Get away from me.”

~~

(Does it leave? You can’t be sure. Your memories have no order or definition anymore. They jumble together on the black background, and yet you continue to clutch them tightly, not caring if they coalesce further- you will lose nothing else. Not yet.)

~~

“Bookworm.”

His voice. It rings through you, calling your entire being to attention. If you weren’t sure your body was little more than a shape, you’d say your heart stopped. You turn, and there he is, advancing from between the cascading mists. Lothar-

-You are paralyzed, for a moment, by a flash of insight. By another memory: of the day you approached another familiar figure in this place. He was located in the fields of dead soldiers and villagers, pacing through the ranks until he’d settle on one and begin to talk. When you first see him, the woman in front of him has nearly risen from the lower threshold entirely, her eyes white, with streams lifting her up as strings would a puppet.

You recognize the crown, and the wavey hair (though it hadn’t been streaked grey when you knew him). His armor, though. You can’t stop staring. It’s right, but it’s not? The gleam is correct, but the shape- More like a generic soldier’s than the distinctive armor you remember Llane wearing. The King turns his head and looks at you, and already you know it is not actually him.

“You.” You say, unwilling to name it.

“Me.” Llane’s voice. “What is it you want, mage?”

“You can take form?”

The thing that isn’t Llane looks you over, then turns to walk on.  _ Sometimes it takes a familiar face to ease one from one life to what is beyond. _

“How?” But the question echoes, and the answer never reflects back.-

-The thing isn’t Lothar, but it bears his image. Blue eyes, tawny hair, the recognized gait. But as familiar as his features are, they don’t come together to form a whole.

“Spellchucker.” Even knowing as you do, is it so wrong to cling to the likeness?

“Khadgar.” A memory, likely your own: called out, hesitant, a little breathy. If you were good at fooling yourself, if you had more of a romantic streak, you would assign that to reverence, or anticipation. You aren’t, and your traitorous mind recalls your final memory of Lothar, and the way he said your name. How he addressed you the way he would a nightmare.

This is an illusion, yes, but as you drift closer you admit it is a lovely one.

How long has it been? You can feel your eyes well, your vision swims in white tendrils. You’re so tired, and so  _ bored _ with waiting. Seeing him, a memory of him, it’s almost enough for your grip to loosen.

_ It’s time. Let me go. _ You freeze. Lothar’s mouth had moved, opened and closed, but the sound came from around you. The voice. If you could breathe, you would let go a shuddering breath.

“You’re convincing. But not that convincing.”

~~

How many times does it attempt to convince you? How long were you subjected to the construct of the parts of a man you loved?

_ Leave me. _

The voice, not Lothar’s.

_ Please move on. _

But the more you hear it, the clearer your image of him is. The way his mouth forms each word, the sharp crack of its emphasis, the low rumble that scaffolds all else together.

_ Please. _ You can see so clearly: his lips coming together for the initial “p,” the tip of his tongue between his teeth leftover from the “l” as his lips stretch into the long “e,” the way his teeth clamp down in the “z” sound.

“Please.” The longer you stay here, the longer you are without Lothar, the more _it_ echoes him.

~~

It will not enter the mist, the creature. The voice. It’s rather like a living shadow. Even when you see it take form, it is a shade off: when it stands next to one of the dead he can see how the darkness clings to its shape, as if it is still partially submerged. But even in a form, its feet hover above the flow of the lower threshold.

When you can’t take it any longer, the mist is where you’ll go.

“If you can’t move past this,” Lothar had said, and you can’t. You won’t. You have a million reasons why, but it comes down to one: you don’t want to. You’ve lived a lifetime within choices and actions you didn’t want, you will not spend death that way as well.

Now, however, there is one thing you want more than peace. You want to see him again. One last time. One more “hello” before the final “goodbye.”

When you chose to step into the mist, as you glance back one more time at the imprint of Lothar’s face swimming in the the darkness, you imagine the relief in finally letting go. What must it be like? To hold another, to rejoin with one half and feel whole? What bliss will fill the aching emptiness you’ve become?

It will be euphoric. Rapturous. 

Shared.

“Wait for me.”

You will. You will wait until the Light itself goes out, and you will go with him.


End file.
